page turner / ministry of moral panic

Meet an over-the-hill Pop Yé-yé singer with a faulty heart, two conservative middle-aged women holding hands in the Galápagos, and the proprietor of a Laundromat with a penchant for Cantonese songs of heartbreak. Rehash national icons: the truth about racial riot fodder-girl Maria Hertogh living out her days as a chambermaid in Lake Tahoe, a mirage of the Merlion as a ladyboy working Orchard Towers, and a high-stakes fantasy starring the still-suave lead of the 1990s TV hit serial The Unbeatables.

Heartfelt and sexy, the stories of Amanda Lee Koe encompass a skewed world fraught with prestige anxiety, moral relativism, sexual frankness, and the improbable necessity of human connection. Told in strikingly original prose, these are fictions that plough, relentlessly, the possibilities of understanding Singapore and her denizens discursively, off-centre. Ministry of Moral  Panic is an extraordinary debut collection and the introduction of a revelatory new voice.

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we've got this one courtesy of a friend who knows amanda lee koe herself - perks include a note with rabbit in a jester's outfit and an autograph. I've never heard of Amanda prior to Ministry of Moral Panic, so I did some googling and guess what, Amanda is kind of giant (couldn't find an exhaustive page on her achievements) in the creative writing industry. 

Published just in October 2013 and still fresh, #MoMP is an extremely colourful (and sexually raw, I must warn) anthology with references heavily dripping with very localized palattes, eclecticism and quirks - I often found myself excited because I knew where these stories took place, and what they were talking about and that made the stories come to life in a different way - "in equal parts a cashier and a love letter" it's Facebook page accurately describes. I never thought much about local literature because I once studied Daren Shiau's Heartland for my O Levels and it was too seamless and one-dimensional to say the least, I didn't feel my sensibilities being challenged. But fastforward to today post-MoMP, I think I feel a little remorseful for discrediting Shiau. I enjoyed #MoMP because it went beyond what I expected today's Singaporean literature to be, it was honest and unpretentious; though admittedly it was a little difficult for me to get past the parts with um, sex in it (where do I put my eyes what do I do with my face). 

I've heard that Alfian Sa'at gave #MoMP a bad review, and I was itching to get to it while I was about 12 pages in because you know, you kaypo and want to know if the book you're reading is cool, but I'm glad I didn't. And if you're thinking of, or if you've heard of that review, my advice is to read this book and form your own, read this book and give it its due credit; don't let someone else mar your judgement. If anything else, the cover of this book should be enough to captivate and make you want to buy it Just Because - big sucker for packaging in case you couldn't tell. 

Have fun starting this! 

Ministry of Moral Panic

by Amanda Lee Koe

Epigram Books

Available in Kinokuniya and Books Actually